If I see you kids running around with broomsticks on my front lawn, I'm coming out there with the Garand.
The fact that the headline reads "Olympic Quidditch Match Not Just For Nerds" is enough to get me to complain to one of those Accuracy In Media watchdog sites. Seriously, the idea that "quidditch" is allowed to be played in the same city in which the Olympics are taking place is as ridiculous as... as... using hobby horses at an equestrian event.
Oh, wait.
I think I'm in the wrong leg of the Trousers of Time. I wanted the cool Firefly future, and it looks like I'm heading for the appallingly fluffy and bland one that Gene Roddenberry envisioned.
(H/T to Joel at TUAK.)
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23 comments:
Just take your Soma and hit the Feelies later.
Me, I'm more about the "Revelation Space" or "Hyperion" type future.
"Fluffy" are you sure? Personally I feel it's starting to resemble 'Brazil' here in Old Blighty (a lady blogger was visited by the police and warned not to approach the route the Olympic Torch was using, and banned from carrying a water pistol (?), as she'd apparently, and jokingly, suggested she'd use one to show her disdain for the event).
Oh, and at the risk of upsetting (well, I find this just soo wrong) look here..
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2154283/Cats-away-Artist-turns-dead-pet-flying-helicopter-killed-car.html
Oh, you'll still get the reavers; witness the rude woman in the movie theater, anyone who works at the License bureau, and most "Professional" foreign car mechaincs. You'll just be told to believe that they're all part of the circle of life, and being raped at tax time or at the cash register is all part of being a grownup in our brave new world.
Tam - wanted the cool Firefly future, and it looks like I'm heading for the appallingly fluffy and bland one that Gene Roddenberry envisioned.
Quibble:
We sort-of HAVE the world of "Firefly": a big, technologically-advanced central government that sticks its long, interfering nose into everything (yeah, Uncle Sugar, the EU, and the Red Chinese haven't got spaceships that look vaguely like chunks of Manhattan have taken to the air, but the idea is the same).
The Federation, on the other hand, at least had the Prime Directive.
docjim505,
"The Federation, on the other hand, at least had the Prime Directive."
But it was about as effective as a restraining order usually is.
Oh you are just bent at Gene because there is a "No Smoking" sign on the bridge of the Enterprise.
Anybody whose fantasy utopian future has no money in it is suspect in my eyes. :p
I always wondered how, with no money, the Federation got anyone to to any distasteful work. For example, you would never get me to beam down to a planet wearing a red shirt.
Even the writer's of the TOS/TNG/DS9/Voyager etc couldn't keep up the premise of a "no money" future. There were transporter credits (which were earned by being a member of Star Fleet) and Uhura purchased a tribble (with credits?), IIRC.
I must be slow this morning: I first read "kids running around on my lawn with boomsticks".
Roddenberry's world isn't so fluffy, actually - you can see class distinctions through the cracks - flag officers who are clearly incompetent, that sort of thing.
You can have a pretty badly stratified society when production levels are so high as to make most material wants pretty much satisfied as the default state. In fact, it's hard to argue that when "money is no longer needed" that there will be all sorts of other status signalling going on.
Ugh - I sound like a cultural anthropologist. What's sad is that I'd be very surprised indeed if someone hasn't already done a dissertation using post-modern class/power analysis techniques on Star Trek.
BP,
"What's sad is that I'd be very surprised indeed if someone hasn't already done a dissertation using post-modern class/power analysis techniques on Star Trek."
I'd say that's pretty close to a statistical certainty.
Well Tam, if wishes were horses we'd all be eating steak.
"spaceships that look vaguely like chunks of Manhattan"
Like Boston's album covers? That means Earth has to explode first.
Able, that toy needs to be kept away from me.
There's a couple of not-quite-stable cat ladies on my Sh*t List.
Personally, I think we're somewhere between "Brazil" and "Bladerunner" - minus the cool androids.
Sigraybeard @ work
You sure the cool androids aren't out there?
Would you be able to spot a replicant? Have you put all the people you've met on the box?
BGM
And Tam,
Admit it. Your mental image of stepping out onto the porch with your Garand already coming up included you screaming Avada Kevadra at the broom straddling twits just before 150 grains of copper and lead reality suspends their disbelief.
BGM
RE: Star Trek future.
What am I gonna do if everything is free. Put on a spacesuit and do the dangerous job of assembling star-ships? (No matter how good the suits are, working in vacuum will always be dangerous.)
Or build a still to make real Kentucky bourbon and "trade" it on the black market to everyone that hates synthehol??? Must taste every batch many, many times for quality control purposes, of course.
Hmmm...sorry Tam, the Star Trek universe doesn't look so bad after all. hahahaha
But what about my gold-pressed latinum? That's not money??
That whole "prime directive" thing was just window dressing. Propaganda.
When things really needed getting done, they had Section 31.
Yer famous..!
http://www.daybydaycartoon.com/2012/06/05/
Star Fleet was (will be? (Yikes!)) a typical military organization. The recruiter may promise you warp engines or the Bridge but you'll more likely be assigned to security.
And Cyrano Jones gave Uhura her (first) tribble for free. Much to the initial consternation of the bartender.
Much apologizing for a youth happily wasted in geekdome...
From the second link:
""Instead of using horses, we are testing the girls' knowledge and ability to adapt," she said. "This will test if they know the pattern, but they are disappointed they don't have their real horses."
I've got an icky feeling this is really about some dude like the character Ben Johnson portrayed in "The Getaway", being abusive because the rodeo queens are spurning his creepy advances.
Mike James
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